Forces of the Unseen
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Sequel to Darillium. Just as Maggie Moss is growing comfortable in her new life aboard the TARDIS, an encounter on Wilforumdvar IV threatens to destroy everything. Features characters from 10th era; rating for implied non-con.
1. Chapter 1

Weeks again passed under the scope of what could only be described as part-dream and part-nightmare. Maggie felt just a fraction of what she realized the Doctor bore on a day-to-day basis. Many nights the TARDIS woke her, bidding her toward the console room, where she would find the Doctor huddled in the swing hanging from the working deck. She never knew what to say on those nights, having never dealt with grief unless it was her own, but even after only a few minutes with his hand clasped in hers the Doctor seemed much improved. They never spoke of those incursions in the waking hours, when Maggie tried not to wonder if she would ever see River again and the Doctor pretended that everything was fine.

They went to more planets, but they weren't all as beautiful or peaceful as Asgaard or Darillium. Never had Maggie known such fear as the moment she watched an alien mother and child vaporized by beasts called the Daleks, and they next turned their eyestalks unto her. Never had she known real sadness or pain until she held a young man's last moments - literally his last moments; the man himself was gone but his consciousness remained a solid mass - in her palm and listened to him cry for his mother.

With the grief sometimes came joy, days where they saved species or stopped planets being sent hurtling into their suns. Days when the Doctor was made into a god, and Maggie his human disciple, and the natives created week-long holidays in their names. Those were the days the Doctor left quietly, when no one was looking. He said it was better not to let such things go to his head. "Wouldn't want to develop a God Complex, would we now?" he laughed to himself.

With every day that passed Maggie grew bolder, taking more liberties with the wide variety of clothes in the wardrobe. She took to enjoying what the Doctor called "rainy days," which she quickly realized meant he wanted either to be alone or to spend hours together in the parlor with games and snacks abounding. It was nice to have a sense of normalcy in an otherwise topsy-turvy world. On the days he spent on repairs they sometimes stopped on Earth or humanoid planets where Maggie could explore safely on her own. Most of the time, though, she simply wandered the wardrobe, looking for new combinations of ensembles. Once she found a veritable collection of short denim skirts and multicolored stockings, it felt like Christmas had come early. Did the Doctor celebrate Christmas? Oh, bother.

By the time they landed on Wilforumdvar IV, Maggie had finally found some strange sense of self-identity in the futuristic world she had been placed into. Though the freedom of being able to wear whatever she wanted was nice, she also liked to remain somewhat feminine in her clothing style, taking particular pleasure in trim-waisted dresses in various vivid colors, usually decorated with white polka dots, and the colored stockings she'd found. Most days, there wasn't much chance to wear anything other than "battle clothes," as she called her jeans and canvas jacket, so getting a chance to put on a dress was special. She liked pop music, and didn't care for country. She wore her hair in a knot at the back of her head. It was okay to flirt, surprisingly enough, and it made her feel special. For the first in a long time, she felt truly happy with herself and who she chose to be. Looking in the mirror every morning wasn't as much of a struggle as it once was.

"Morning, Maggie," the Doctor greeted, already waist-deep in the space under the TARDIS console. She reached down and untangled the wires around his head in response. "I've got some pretty important repairs to do, so I've landed us on Wilforumdvar V, one of the biggest marketplaces in the galaxy. Should be fun, eh? You go do some exploring, and I'll meet you when I'm finished. There's money and your mobile on the jumpseat, give me a call if anything goes pear-shaped."

"Will you _answer_ your phone this time?" Maggie teased him. Tucking the phone and foreign bills into her purse, she straightened her skirt before setting off to the marketplace.

The Doctor had always loved working with his hands, even way back when he was only 105 years old. Whenever he was bored, sorting out his thoughts, or had had a quarrel with Koschei, he had turned to the confines of his rooms in the Citadel. There was an odd comfort in the weight of gears and wires in his hands, the buzz of his screwdriver an assuring hum in his ears.

Sometimes he would listen to music, but to be perfectly honest, the music of Gallifrey had been either depressing or slightly maniacal worship of the Untempered Schism, which he supposed also was depressing, but in a different sort of way. He loved the music of far-off places while he worked, songs of adventure and heroism; sometimes, if he closed his eyes and focused on the feel of his tools and the alien melodies, he could almost imagine himself as that far-off hero.

He hummed those songs to himself as a reminder more than anything these days, because it had occurred after Demon's Run that many of those songs in actuality _were_ about him. It had not been an optimistic epiphany. He didn't want to be put on such a pedestal as the hero in those songs, to have so much expectation placed upon his shoulders, to have peoples assume greatness in his every breath. He was a _man_. He was a man, who had friends, and family, and people he loved who were dragged into hell with him every single day. All he wanted was peace.

Before he'd even been halfway finished with his work - spending more time chatting to Sexy than actually fixing her - the phone started ringing. He considered ignoring it, assuming it was some far-off dignitary trying to pry a favor from him, but remembered Maggie was out on her own and figured he ought to make sure things were going alright. "Hello?" he grunted, breathless from lying on his front so long and then getting quickly up.

"Doctor!" came a familiar and almost painfully welcome voice on the other end. "Your voice sounds different; don't tell me you changed?"

The Doctor smiled to himself, leaning with one hand against the console. "Captain Jack Harkness," he beamed. "I wear a bow-tie now, bow-ties are cool." It was all he was willing to offer as an explanation, still remembering how painful the idea of dying had been to his previous regeneration. He supposed the idea of dying would be painful to anyone who saw it coming. It had certainly been painful when he thought it was inevitable.

The door swung open, and in swaggered Captain Jack, coat still intact and beaming grin on his face as he appraised the Doctor's new body. "What's going on, Jack?" he asked, turning to lean against the console with one hip. Sexy purred appreciatively, and so did Jack. "What trouble have you gotten into this time?"

Jack laughed, low and growling, in his throat as he pointed with a thumb over his shoulder. "I just ran into your companion, Maggie, about ten minutes ago," he explained. "I heard the TARDIS and came running to say hello, saw a human and put the pieces together. She's precious, and such a flirt! Didn't know any companion of yours would have it in them."

"Well, you didn't know the Ponds," reasoned the Doctor, allowing the Time Agent to wrap him in a hug for a moment.

Another laugh, Jack throwing back his head, before becoming smilingly serious. It was a gift unique to the man. "But listen, Doctor, in all seriousness, why aren't you with her? I told her to keep clear of the north side, but it's still a bit of a bad idea to let a human wander around unaccompanied on Wilforumdvar IV, isn't - Doctor?" he asked at the sight of the Doctor's hand slipping and knocking his head into the center column of the console.

"Wilforumdvar IV? I thought we were on V!" the Doctor practically shouted, white-faced with shock.

Jack raised his eyebrows and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders to steady him. "Doctor, it'll be fine, she can't have gone far, let's just go get her."

"Where did you run into her?"

Biting his lip and looking to the side, Jack replied, "About a ten-minute jog north." He clapped the Doctor on the shoulder and they set off, locking the TARDIS doors behind them. The journey north was silent, the Time Lord too worried to talk other than to get directions or ask if anyone had seen Maggie.

The difference between Wilforumdvar IV and V, though only a short distance and only one digit away, was a drastic one. V was a marketplace teeming with trinkets and beauty and peaceful peoples of all races. IV was a planet specialized in black market trades, selling illegal substances and weapons to anyone who had the money. Humans gave the place a wide berth, having somewhat unfortunately gained a reputation as a highly sexual species. Any humans found on the north end, Auction End, tended to end up picked up and sold to the highest bidder within half an hour.

"Excuse me, have you seen a human in a blue dress?" Jack was asking aliens around them. "Pardon me, have you seen a human female, blue dress, black hair? Hey, come here, look at this picture, tell me if you've seen this girl. Look at this girl, have you seen her? If you lie to me I'll rip all three of your tongues out."

On Auction End, a low roar had started up capable of being heard from halfway down the market. It grew in pitch, in volume, in viciousness, as they drew nearer, the Doctor's hearts beating like a kick-drum in his chest.

"_Hu-man! Hu-man! HU-MAN! HU-MAN! HU-MAN!_" they screamed in unison, waving currency in the air to make a desperate bid.

Jack and the Doctor shoved and elbowed their way through the masses, trying to get to the stage where the auction was taking place. Up on the plinth, the auctioneer was shouting to be heard over them all, "_Look at this pretty young specimen! Look how she fights! Watch her beautiful blood swell beneath the shackles! Who will give me ten thousand for her?_"

They were nearly deafened by the roar of the crowd, and still Jack and the Doctor were not near enough. As they drew nearer to the front the people became more hostile, shoving them back, knocking them over the heads, finally lifting them bodily over their heads and throwing them off to the side. From their distance, the Doctor couldn't even catch the barest glimpse of Maggie, and was subdued by, ironically, a security officer.

"I'm not human, you swine, I'm Boeshane!" Jack snarled. Technically, that was still human though it was not Earth, but the majority of people on Wilforumdvar IV were not the most intelligent. "Doctor, they've sold her, it was a private bid, this is just for show to excite people." He was gasping, wild-eyed, and the Doctor hated himself for always dragging the people he loved into such dreadful messes.

The crowd began to move, churning and writhing into a mass that surrounded and swallowed them. The Doctor reached blindly out and grasped both of Jack's hands to keep them together. He could hardly breathe with closely-packed bodies and fear all around him. Jack looked equally grim, though braver than the Doctor felt at present. The Time Agent pulled back a hand, raised a highly-illegal-looking blaster in his hands, and sent three shots into the air. The aliens surrounding them went still, giving them a chance to get more securely together, but the rest of the crowd was still moving and cheering. By the time Jack and the Doctor could more freely again, Maggie was long gone.

"We'll find her," Jack assured him, though there was a tremor to his voice that the Doctor didn't like one bit. He knew the chances just as well as anyone else on this planet. Once an item - he shuddered at the blatant objectification of his friend - had been sold, it was gone forever until it was brought back for resale. And Maggie was out there somewhere, being treated like an _item_...it made the Doctor's skin crawl. He would find her, and he would destroy whoever it was who had the audacity to think she was something to be bought.


	2. Chapter 2

She knew that it doubtlessly was a tired line by now, but Maggie had never been so terrified in her life. She had lived through the invasion of London, the life and death of River Song, her first proper kiss, flight through the outermost reaches of space, intergalactic wars, Daleks, and countless monsters. The Doctor's words - _You're so brave, Maggie; this is Maggie, you'll like her, she's clever; Maggie Moss, I do believe you're right_ - echoed in her mind, reminding her that she had lived through worse, and yet none of those times could be remembered suddenly.

Everything about that planet could not have been more terrifying than the alien man who clapped eyes upon her mere minutes after she had been stopped by the Doctor's old friend, waited for her to try to pass, and snatched her by the hem of her dress. Within moments it was barely clinging to her, ripped to shreds by fingers that were sharp as knives. The monster wrestled her, struggling, into his arms and then up in the air, cutting into her skin, and roared, "_HUMAN!_"

Silence fell in the marketplace all around her, and aliens of all races gaped at her as she tried to writhe out of the man's grip without cutting herself more severely on his hands. Her purse had been torn from her hands, the mobile skittering out onto the street and getting stepped on by a massive hoofed foot moments later. Then they were surrounded by a screaming, cheering mob that churned and writhed all around. The man holding her, gray as a mountainside and just as bulky, walked steadily through the ocean of bodies in the direction of the Auction End, according to a signpost.

_He said it was safe_, she screamed in her own mind. _He said I would be safe..._

Then she was shackled and placed on her feet, forced to walk after her shoes had been torn off. The enormous man held her shoulder in his claws, digging into her flesh and making her bleed if she squirmed or so much as thought of struggling.

They walked to a small metal box, which the man holding her began shoving her toward. It was just big enough to fit her uncomfortably. When she was nine years old, Maggie fell down into a well and was trapped for an hour until her father could find help.

"No," she gasped, pulling against the knives at her arm. "No, I beg of you, please!"

He held a razor-sharp thumb to her throat. "Get in the box, pretty," he growled, and shoved her inside fully.

"I'm a companion of the Doctor!" she screamed as a last resort.

The man smiled sickeningly as all those around him hushed. "Even better." The air inside the box was hot and thick, and yet the moment the hatch closed Maggie started to shiver like she were stranded in the middle of Siberia. Her chin had been roughly jutted up by her knees, and she bit through her lower lip, could feel the blood dripping down her chin. every breath was a whimpering scream in her throat, every inhale pulling the long thin cuts in her skin.

"Doctor?" she called out, more to comfort herself than really expecting the man to appear. Though the people and planets believed that was how the Doctor found them, through prayers for a savior and a well-timed miracle, Maggie knew it was pure accident every single time. She prayed for a mishap to take the TARDIS to her.

With a rattle like a death-knell, the box shook, and it felt as though something had been fractured inside her mind. Every thought burned through her synapses until she screamed with the agony of it, straining against the walls pressing on her from all sides. Then the hatch fell open and she gulped the air desperately, killing off the pain with every breath even as her body continued to scream in protest.

She was yanked from the box by her shackles, dragged out onto a stage like a dog on a lead and re-secured to a pedestal in the center. The chain was too short; she had to either crouch or bend her spine to stand without strain, but those thoughts swam far away when she heard the roar of the crowd watching her. Vision swimming in and out, she pulled fruitlessly at her bonds, unable to decipher any of the words as English like the Doctor said she should be able to. Blood ran from her lacerations, the shackles broke the skin of her wrists, and still she pulled, still she fought and wished so desperately that the Doctor hadn't made her dispose of her father's service revolver.

Feet away, the man who had kidnapped her stood at a podium like a grand announcer, shouting in gutteral grunts to the overwhelming crowd as he gestured at her. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as the crowd packed themselves into the small space, all of them shrieking and rattling in their native tongues, all staring at her like...like...like something for sale.

The very idea of it made a scream of terror rise in her throat, let alone the moment one of the terrible creatures stepped forth and shook hands with her seller. He was the same size as the one who had taken her, though with more musculature and different coloring. Resembling cooling lava, is skin was black as coal with almost luminescent orange-red in all the creases in his skin. His eyes burned into her, fear choked her, and she had to be dragged across the stage when she pulled so hard against the shackles that she slipped and fell.

By the time they made it to the edge of the stage the man who had taken her grew impatient, bringing a hammer-like fist down onto her head. Her vision went white, erupting with stars, and then faded to black.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Jack had darted to the stage the moment they'd been able to get close enough, the last remnant of the crowd still remaining to gossip about the auction. "Jack, get out your gun," instructed the Doctor darkly. They hadn't been able to see the alien who had taken Maggie, but that didn't make it impossible to get information out of stragglers.

"Way ahead of you, Doc," Jack replied, cocking his gun and taking the nearest alien wearing a shirt by the collar. The green man shrieked in surprise, but was expectantly compliant with a gun in his face. "Hello there, name's Jack. Where's the human girl gone?"

"I didn't sell her; why are you asking me?" he asked, panicked.

Jack jerked him around, and his female - or at least she looked female - companion jumped forward to defend him. "Hey, you let him go! He didn't do anything to you!" she screeched.

"We're looking for a human girl who was sold here not but fifteen minutes ago!" the Doctor shouted into her face. "She was kidnapped and auctioned off illegally; now tell us who bought her!"

The man and woman fell into awed silence at the sight of the Doctor. "It was Kraxau," said the man at last. "Kraxau, he's one of the big men on the hill. He gets first grabs on all the humans around here, gives them the run around and then hands them off to someone e - _oh god don't kill me!_"

The Doctor had stormed forward and yanked the man's collar from Jack's hand, dragging the flappy skin of his green head back to make the man look into his eyes. There was a shiver that passed through the air as the last of the Time Lords stared right into the very being of him. It was like looking directly into all of them. He could feel their fear, their desire to run, their want to make him happy again, and for a moment it went right to his head. Just as it always did.

He smiled coldly at the man. "Kraxau, was it? Big man on the hill? Well, he doesn't seem to realize the danger of taking a dear friend from a man who's already lost everything else. Why don't you show us the way?" Practically throwing the pudgy green alien up the path ahead of them, the Doctor glanced sideways at Jack. The fear on his face was enough to make him take a breath, calm down a bit. Mistakes were made when he got emotional, and he liked to think that he knew better than that.

The moment the Doctor let him go the tiny man went running, scampering off over a sewer grate and turning into goo so he could escape through the cracks without being shot at, girlfriend on his heels. "No, no, come back!" shouted the Doctor down the grate, kicking at it with the flat of it his foot. "Damn you!"

Jack grasped his shoulders to keep him from toppling over in his enthusiasm. "Doctor, it's alright, we know where she is now; let's just find the big hill and see if there's anyone around to show us the way." He was staring at the Time Lord with the smallest hint of apprehension, as though waiting for another whisper of the oncoming storm. Thinking better of restraining the best and most dangerous man in the universe, he moved his hand down to take the Doctor's and lead him along.

"So, when did you get your makeover?" he asked conversationally, though every syllable was still laced with tension and worry.

The Doctor looked around, distracted. "Oh, about three hundred years ago now? Don't know how long it's been for you, of course. It was that day at the bar, with Alonso," he explained briefly, scratching a spot on his cheek with his free hand. It looked like he was about ready to vibrate right out of his skin.

"Ah, Alonso, wow, I haven't thought about him in a while. You've done this body good; the last one barely had a chance to stretch his legs. Though I have to say, Doctor, tweed and a bow tie?"

"Oh, shut it."

Despite the fear he felt for Maggie, despite the lingering thought that two of the past three hundred years had been spent with his wife who he now would never see again, despite everything, it was nice to see Jack again, to get the old band back together. And once they had Maggie back maybe they could take him along for the ride again.

There were seven hills surrounding the Capitol of Wilforumdvar IV, and the largest towered above them all. There was a private rail that took the owner to the top, and a broken-up path for visitors. The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and tried to get the rail to come back, but set off an alarm instead and they had to backtrack to avoid detection. "Up around the back, then," decided Jack for them, and they began the long walk to the manor house perched high above them.

"What happened to Torchwood?" the Doctor asked after a few minutes' climb, squinting up at the windows of the house in an attempt to find a sign of his companion.

Jack waited until the silence was on the verge of becoming uncomfortable before replying. "It's gone. Destroyed. Everyone except me and Gwen were killed." He ignored the pained sound the Doctor made, instead favoring a fraying spot on the cuff of his coat. "I blamed you, you know. At first."

It seemed a reasonable enough thing to do, in the Doctor's opinion. "What made you stop?" he asked, dreading the answer already.

"I figured you were probably out there saving someone else," he shrugged. "Someone who wouldn't take the gifts you give for granted."

To here those words were like being hit with a whip, jerking bloody, painful memories forth within moments. Yes, the Doctor had heard what had almost happened to the children of Earth, and the sacrifice Jack had made to keep it from happening, and the lives lost in the struggle, and he had been capable only of turning his head away in shame. Just when he thought the humans were collectively good, they went and tried something even more disturbing then he thought they would ever succumb to. It wasn't a gift he gave to those corrupted planets and species, or a blessing; it was a warning. Don't disappoint, or there will be no one there to save you next time. And being the deliverer of that warning hurt more than anything.

Instead of replying in a way that would get him regenerating due to a blaster to the brain, he smiled sadly and squeezed Jack's shoulder. They turned their focus back to the matter at hand and continued the climb, tentatively forming a strategy of sorts.


	3. Chapter 3

Kraxau himself, of course, did not answer the door when they breathlessly knocked. A small, wiry thing with enormous eyes, which bulged right out of his head in surprise at the sight of the Doctor, quickly bowed them inside. "The Master is busy at present," he squeaked, "but you are more than welcome to have a drink before the voyage back down. It is a very long climb, no? Heh..."

"Actually, I think you ought to fetch your master," the Doctor instructed, pulling out his psychic paper. "We're here on behalf of the Shadow Proclamation; a word with mister Kraxau is necessary to our investigation."

The news of an inquiry combined with whatever was on the psychic paper made the servant shiver. "Oh, well, that is an exception," he admitted. "You wait here; I will fetch my master."

As soon as he had scuttled out of the room on his crab-like legs the Doctor had Jack by the collar and was shoving him into a side-corridor. "I don't believe for one second that he's just going to apologize and give Maggie back," he explained gruffly. "I need you to be on the inside and try to find her while I cause a diversion."

Jack nodded and immediately stumbled off for a place to hide.

"Corzan tells me you're with the Shadow Proclamation," grunted Kraxau the moment he entered the room, servant scuttling along behind him. The Doctor spun from where he'd been pretending to admire the fireplace to see the enormous alien wrinkle his brow in confusion. "I thought there were two of you."

He pointed with a thumb over his shoulder and smiled. It tasted like venom on his lips. "He had somewhere to be. It's alright though, just us now, isn't it?" With another flash of the psychic paper Kraxau was convinced, and that was when the Doctor let his smile fade to something darker. "You've been buying up humans again. In accordance with the Shadow Proclamation Level 5 species can't be bought or sold into slavery. You ought to know that, Mister Ambassador. And yet you sauntered down to Auction End and purchased a young human girl. An underage human girl from a period in history where sexuality is so repressed that, even now, the probability of you raping her is the last thing on her mind. But you'll find it is _not_ the last thing on _mine._"

Kraxau was remarkably calm for a man being caught red-handed. "I attained her legally," he explained. "She had no connections. I have had her cleaned, given water, when she is hungry I will feed her, and she has a place to sleep. I see no qualms with that." There was a danger to his seriousness. He was certainly a man who would fight for what he believed to be his property.

"She was psychically linked to me and my TARDIS," hissed the Doctor in response. In the entire span of their conversation, their voices never rose above polite tone.

"TARDIS?"

That seemed to have been the magic word. Kraxau's black-and-orange face went gray, and his red eyes widened at the name of the Doctor's ship. "You...you're..."

Another smile curled his lips. "Hello," he murmured, "I'm the Doctor, and I want my friend back."

Kraxau seemed utterly gobsmacked for only a moment, then regained his admirable composure. "I'm afraid that you'll have to show some proof of ownership, if you want her back. As I said before, I obtained the girl legally."

"The proof is that you can understand her," the Doctor snapped back. "The proof is the translator working on her right now. Have you bothered trying to speak to her? Listening to her? Because you'll understand her, and that's proof enough."

A slimy, dangerous smirk crossed the alien man's lips. "Fine. Let's see then, shall we? Corzan, bring the girl here," he ordered, and the servant fled the room again. "But if you cannot prove she's yours, Doctor, then I must demand you leave my home and not return."

Before the Doctor could fathom a response - he knew that there was something going on here, knew it right down to his bones, but couldn't find a way around it - Corzan had returned with Maggie in tow. She _had_ been cleaned up, the grime of the streets scrubbed away until her skin was red and raw. Her dress was gone, replaced by a toga-like garment that barely covered her decently. There were long half-congealed lacerations on her shoulders and arms, one on her cheek and throat, and bloodied bruises circling her thin wrists, extended beyond the shackles still holding her.

Her eyes darted, terrified, around the room before settling on the Doctor. She made a strangled sound and tried to rush for him, but was stopped by her shackles.

"Maggie, are you alright?" the Doctor asked instantly, trying to move closer, but Kraxau blocked his path. "Maggie, say something."

The girl had shrunk away, horror written clearly across her features. Another animalistic noise escaped her, and then another, and another, until she had fallen back against the wall, weeping.

Kraxau spread his arms. "Can you understand that? Because I certainly can't," he announced, feigning helplessness. There was a sick glimmer of triumph in his eyes.

"Maggie?" the Doctor asked, stepping forward, and the girl shrank away again. He rounded upon Kraxau. "What have you done to her? Why can't she speak?"

It hit him all too slowly to realize why he couldn't understand her. She was speaking English. Somehow, Maggie's link to the TARDIS had been broken, probably painfully and by force. When he spoke to her she heard Gallifreyan, and when she spoke to him he heard Earth English, a language he had only picked up bits and pieces of over the years. There was no proof that she belonged with him. It was a much more terrifying thought than it had been minutes ago.

Kraxau had been banking on this, and smirked at his servant. "You see? Take her back, Corzan. She is legally mine, and you have no right to her, Doctor."

"_I have every right!_" thundered the Doctor, trying to unbalance the ambassador's unwavering veneer of cool.

Maggie couldn't help herself; she flinched back from the Doctor's anger, the unfamiliar words and sounds he was forming with his voice. Never had a language sounded so profound or so terrifying in its passion. The Doctor and the one who had taken her continued to interact with one another in their respective languages - why wasn't the TARDIS translator working for her, too? - as the smaller servant alien took hold of the chain binding her.

"No!" she gasped, pulling back against the shackles even as the pain in her arms made her want to scream with agony. "No, Doctor! Doctor, help me!"

The Time Lord continued to fight with the alien as she was dragged from the room, dark eyes glued upon her the whole while. He started to try shoving past the alien, who raised his hammer of a fist and clocked him across the jaw. Immediately the Doctor was taken down to the flagstones, groaning and clutching his face, even then struggling to get up and reach her. The last thing Maggie saw before the door closed behind her was of the alien kicking the Doctor in the ribs.

She was taken back to the small, dank room that she had been closed up in the moment they'd reached the house, where another servant had brought a bowl of water and forced her to wash. Then the tattered remains of her dress had been stripped away, stained by blood and stuck to her body in places. Once clean the servant had left her naked in the room for nearly half an hour, curling around herself for warmth and some illusion of keeping her body covered. The servant with his crab-legs had brought her the new garment just before dragging her out to be seen by the Doctor.

Why hadn't he taken her back? Why hadn't her alien abductor relinquished her to the Doctor when it was obvious that they were companions? And why couldn't she understand any of them?

Her covering was taken away the moment the servant returned her to her cell, and she was left to curl naked against the wall again, shivering. Thoughts swirled through her groggy head like mist, difficult to tear apart and decipher individually. There was so much fear there that it was hard to form any coherencies at all other than _Where is the Doctor? I want to go home. I want my clothes back; this isn't decent. I am so cold..._

"Psst!" a voice hissed from the small window of her cell. "Maggie!"

Feeling sluggish and tired, it took several attempts to lift her head and see the sharp eyes looking in at her. It was that man, the one she'd run into in the marketplace, the man who said he knew the Doctor. How had he gotten in?

"Maggie, can you hear me?" he asked.

"Y-yes," she replied, voice cracked and painful in her throat from so much screaming earlier. "Don't look at me. I'm naked."

There was a small huff of frustration on the other side of the door, but the man's eyes lowered. "I'm not looking. Can you move closer? I don't want to raise my voice, and then we can meet eyes without me seeing anything."

Slowly, Maggie decided that her legs could support her even if they did feel like jelly. She stood and stumbled to the door, keeping her arms crossed to cover her breasts even when she reached the door and no more than her face could be seen.

"Hi, I'm Jack." The man smiled comfortingly, closing his hand around one of the bars in the window. "I'm going to try to get you out of here, Maggie, but I need your help. When Kraxau brought you in, did you notice any hatches or trapdoors? A servants' entrance?"

Feeling utterly worthless, she shook her head. Her cheeks burned and face crumpled. "No, I d-didn't look, I'm s-sorry," she cried, unable to abate the tears once they began to flow. Her body started to shake with stress and fear of the unknown hanging so treacherously above her.

Jack's hand reached through the window and touched her cheek, being cautious where she was cut and still sore. She leaned unexpectedly into the contact, seeking out the touch of another for her own comfort for the first time since she was small. "Hey, it's okay," he assured her. "It's not your fault; we'll work this out. I've got to get back to the Doctor before they find me down here, but we'll be back to get you soon. You have to show him you aren't afraid, Maggie." His thumb brushed over her cheekbone, wiping away her tears. "You have to try not to give in to him. Guys like him, they get off on fear, you know? They like knowing how powerful they are, so you've got to show him that he doesn't have power over you."

There was a clattering of alien feet down the stone corridor, and Jack quickly was forced to withdraw his hand from the cell window. "Be brave, Maggie. Make us proud," he whispered bracingly before running off. Though the last thing she wanted was to be alone, Maggie knew that Jack getting out without being detected was her only chance.

Four servant aliens came to the door as soon as Jack's footsteps had faded, one of them bearing the same ratty garment she'd had before, two of the others carrying a large leather roll between them. The fourth took her chains in its spiny-but-strong hands, and together they waited for Maggie to cover herself before guiding her out of the cell.

_Be brave,_ she heard Jack whisper again in her mind. _Make us proud._

She straightened her back to the precision of a rod, and raised her head as high as she could. Again her hand yearned for her father's revolver, but there was no use crying over spilt milk.

_Be brave._

As they approached a room with its door wide open, the alien named Kraxau waiting inside, Maggie took a steadying breath.

_Be brave._


	4. Chapter 4

Gasping and in pain, the Doctor opened his eyes to find himself having been thrown and rolled down the enormous hill, landing in a pile of refuse at the bottom. When he sat up his ribs screamed in protest, and then he remembered being kicked several times. After being knocked in the jaw, which was also hurting quite a lot, come to think of it.

"Doctor?" Jack's voice called out distantly, still halfway up the hill, probably searching for him.

On shaking legs he forced himself to stand, attempting to raise a hand over his head and only succeeding in getting it level to his shoulder. "Jack..." he croaked weakly before stumbling into the underbrush. The Time Agent must have heard the bushes crackling, because moments later he was being jostled and untangled from the brush.

"Jeez, Doc, he really got you one, didn't he?" Jack murmured, handling him more gently upon the realization that he was causing pain.

Unable to draw a deep enough breath to make a snide remark, the Doctor merely settled on a glare. "TARDIS," he hissed instead. Nodding, Jack wrapped one of the Time Lord's arms over his broad shoulders, anchoring and supporting him for the trek back to the TARDIS.

"Medical bay?" Jack inquired after the oddest three-legged-race of his life.

The Doctor ripped himself away from Jack's side and stumbled up to the console, pulling at the controls with the door still hanging open. "We don't have time," he grimaced. "We need to pick up some reinforcements and come back for Maggie."

From where he'd hunched over the controls to help in any way he could, Jack stiffened. "Reinforcements?"

-

Being unable to understand the language being spoken to her, Maggie was only capable of staring blankly at Kraxau as he growled gibberish at her. Enormous hands gestured to the servants, who dutifully unrolled the leather package they'd borne along with her to his chambers. Inside was a small collection of weaponry - ones that he was going to use on her? - but no, he was gesturing to her and then the weapons as he spoke. She forced herself to focus on his body language and not his nonsense words, watched him take a stance in the center of the room, equidistant between the door out and the door to what appeared to be his bedroom.

After a moment's thought, it seemed all too clear to Maggie. She had one weapon to use to fight her way to the door to freedom, while he did everything in his power to get her to the other side of the room, where he would then kill her. She turned immediately to the weapons to get a closer look.

It seemed that this planet was beyond guns. Blast. Everything other than a cudgel looked too large for her to wield, and so she closed her shaking hand around its handle, only to find it almost unbearably heavy. Made of some foreign metal, it was either far denser than it appeared or she was simply weakened by the trauma and stress combined with having no food or water since that morning. It took both hands, but she managed to barely lift it the slightest bit, arms shaking with exertion after only moments.

Kraxau flexed his knuckled and smiled with dangerous teeth.

Where was the Doctor?

-

Once the plan had been spelled out, at Jack's insistence, the Doctor hustled to the medical bay to look after himself while the Time Agent called in the cavalry. He cheated, a bit, and simply took something for the pain, something to clear his head for however long it took to get Maggie back, because doing any serious healing could take hours that they didn't have. Instead he stuck his arm into a scanner that would measure how much pain meds he needed and administer them accordingly.

"Listen, Sexy," he murmured through shallow breaths, running a hand tenderly over the scanner. "I know you know me better than I do, but I need you do do this one properly. Please. I can't ruin another one."

There was a soothing hum in his head, though he wasn't sure if that was to reassure him or distract him from the the pinch of the injection.

When he returned to the console it was to find three instead of four additional passengers - the cavalry. "Where's Amy?" he asked on his way to the steering platform.

"With the kids," Rory explained, looking just as befuddled as two of his other companions. "Um, Doctor-?"

"I need your strength behind me on this," said the Doctor before Rory could ask, waiting until the TARDIS was in flight before stepping up and embracing the other two people who had been corralled into helping. "It's still me, Martha. And I'm sorry for taking you like this, but I need help, yours and Mickey's."

The woman before him - older, wiser, and yet still managing to look so innocently surprised by the materialization of the TARDIS in her sitting room - nodded. "Of course, Doctor, we'll do what we can, but what happened?" she asked.

"Yeah, we were having a quiet night in," Mickey added darkly, never having quite released the Doctor from his grudge after Rose left.

He fell into silence at the sight on the Doctor's new face. They all fell silent, awaiting instructions from him like soldiers their general. They were possibly the smallest army in the universe but an army nevertheless, going by the weapons hanging from Martha, Mickey, and Jack's holsters. The Doctor's face twisted at the sigh of them, but this once he did not speak up against them.

Taking an experimental deep breath, he felt the detached discomfort of broken ribs rubbing together, but no pain. "I'm asking you all here to help me," he said slowly. "This is different from most anything I've ever done. We're going to a planet where the law works in almost the exact opposite way as on Earth, and we have to work against it to do what's right." He watched them staring up at him with such open trust and dedication, and felt a lance of disgust for the power he held over them.

Rory saved him, as he was always wont to do, by stepping forward again. "Doctor, where's Maggie? How long has it been since we last saw you?" he asked cautiously. "Is she...is this like Demon's Run?"

"Demon's Run? Like the old poem?" Martha asked, bewildered, then shook her head. "Never mind, that's not important. We'll help you, Doctor, but we need to know what we're up against first."

The Doctor nodded, more to himself, and moved back to the controls while he explained. "We're fighting a monster. Not in the sense that you're thinking. He has Maggie. It's nothing like Demon's Run, because all they wanted at Demon's Run was to manipulate, to control, and to kill Amy. This is...I don't know if this is worse. But the man who has Maggie is a monster, more of a monster than I've ever seen, and he's stronger than five of us put together and he's in a position of power and could have us all killed if we're captured."

He closed his eyes, waiting for someone to object and almost hoping for it. Where was Mickey, bringing up how he was the Tin Dog for so long? Why wasn't Martha railing at him about the hopeless year she spent under his thumb while he prattled on about how iRose would know what to do/i? Shouldn't Jack have hit him by now? Shouldn't Rory have stayed home while he still had two children to go home to?

"Always knew that poem was about you," Martha muttered with a wry smirk. "Now get a move on, we're wasting time and we've got housebreaking and a theft ahead of us."

Relief and guilt and an almost unbearable love for Martha Jones-Smith welled in his chest - why had he never seen her like this when she needed him to? - as he landed the TARDIS on the most level plane of land near Kraxau's manor. He turned on the invisibility boosters before stepping out ahead of the others. Night had fallen since they left, and he felt a twinge of fear. He hoped it was only because night fell very quickly on Wilforumdvar IV, rather than the TARDIS having another wobbly.

"Depending on what state the girl's in, you ought to add manslaughter to that list," Mickey murmured back, earning himself a slap on the arm but no protests from any of the other passengers. Rory was watching the Doctor with barely-concealed worry on his face, even over ten years later remembering the dangerous anger of the good man.

It was child's play to open the back door with the sonic screwdriver, and once they were all sequestered in the servant's entrance Jack, Martha, and Mickey pulled out their weapons. Rory was supplied one, along with a quick introduction to the couple. "Jack, go find Maggie; take Martha with you in case - if she needs medical attention. Mickey Mouse, Roranicus, with me."

They broke apart, grim determination written across their faces. The Doctor deliberately made as much noise as he could, dragging his feet, knocking things over, to attract attention to them rather than the intruders in the cellar. Mickey was practically hugging his enormous gun, eyes darting to every shadow, but it wasn't with the same boyish urgency he'd held when the Doctor had first encountered him. Now it was the steadfast caution of a soldier.

After countless disturbances that would have woken the heaviest of sleepers, the search party ended in a parlor, where Kraxau was seated facing away from them.

"Hello, Doctor," he greeted airily, "I was wondering when you would find me again."

With a single gesture from the Doctor, Mickey and Rory raised their guns to aim steadily at the alien's head, while the Doctor himself went round front to face him. "Shall we do this the civilized way or the way of war?" asked the Time Lord as though debating where they would like to have lunch.

Kraxau straightened in his seat as though the whole affair was boring him. "It's of no use," he drawled. "I've already used her up, the girl. You've been idays/i." The light from the fireplace fell upon his face to reveal a long, ugly bruise marring the entire left side of his face. "She fought so beautifully. I've even kept a lock of hair to remember her b-"

His voice was choked off by the Doctor's hand wrapping around his throat. It wasn't so much that the Doctor's grip - weakened by injuries and drugs - was affecting his leathery skin, but he was surprised by the small man's audacity. "iWhat have you done?/i" shouted the Doctor. Rory and Mickey never wavered for a moment, but moved around to have a clearer aim at Kraxau.

"I did nothing but use my property the way I wish," stated the other man clearly, his airway not even the slightest bit obstructed by the Doctor's hand. "But you know how fragile humans are, don't you, Doctor? I knew it was time to put her down when I felt her ribs break under my hands, like twigs."

There was something rabid and vicious in how heavily the Doctor was breathing as he held out a hand to Rory, begging off his gun. Uncertainly, he handed it over and the Doctor slung the strap over his own shoulders. It looked almost comical to see the Time Lord bearing such a weapon, but then there was a surge in the air, as if the entire universe had given a small shudder of fear, and any hint of comedy was stripped away.

"Where is she?" he growled.

A revolting smile settled over Kraxau's lips. "Dead."

There was a flash of white light that filled the room for a brief second, then the Doctor yanked the gun from over his shoulders and practically threw it at Rory with disgust for himself. Kraxau's body had hardly moved but to relax into the loose posture of death. Mickey clenched his jaw and lowered his weapon, but didn't flinch. Rory looked like he was going to be sick.

The only sound in the room was that of the Doctor's labored breathing, fighting for control of himself when there was no satisfaction to be found in killing Kraxau. Then the sound of approaching footsteps filled the corridor and Jack burst in, breathless. "Doctor, we - you killed him?" he gasped, staring at the alien body.

"I did," the Doctor nodded, and that seemed to take even more of Jack's breath away. "He killed Maggie."

The other man shook his head. "No, he didn't; he was provoking you. Quite successfully, I guess. But the authorities are going to be crawling all over the place soon; let's get Maggie and get out of here!"

The Doctor looked almost dizzy with horror and relief as he tailed Jack out of the parlor.


	5. Chapter 5

Martha was lying in wait outside of a cell when they arrived, and held out her hand expectantly as soon as they were near enough. "Sonic," she barked with all the professionalism of a surgeon, though given a very Martha-flair when she snapped her fingers impatiently. The Doctor handed it over, and she expertly undid the lock. "You lot wait out here; if she's really from 1900 then even more strange men will only upset her."

Nodding in agreement, they all hung back, but the Doctor positioned himself so he could see inside the cell. Maggie was lying prone on the floor, curled into a ball. The girl looked like she'd personally dragged herself right out of the seventh circle of Hell. Clumps of black hair had been ripped right out of their roots, the ends of her fingers were positively ripped apart, and any part of her that hadn't been cut was mottled gray-blue with bruises. The same garment that had barely concealed her before was even more tattered and dirtied by blood.

Though her eyes were open and staring, though breath passed shallowly from her lips, though blood still ran in (and from) her veins, it was painfully clear that Maggie Moss was dead.

The Doctor's hearts clenched angrily in his chest until he wondered if he was having some sort of attack.

"Maggie," whispered Martha cautiously. The girl gave no outward response. "My name is Martha, I'm a doctor."

Nothing.

"Can you say something?"

Nothing.

"I need to have a look at you."

Nothing. Martha stepped nearer and crouched in front of Maggie. She followed Maggie's line of sight and realized she was staring directly at the Doctor. He was staring back, hollow-eyed. Martha gestured him inside, thinking that the girl wanted him to be nearer.

The Doctor swallowed thickly and stepped into the cell. "Maggie," he whispered, hating how broken he sounded when he was meant to be strong for her. "Maggie, I'm so sorry. I don't...I don't know what to do..."

Maggie finally reacted. She flinched away from his voice, closing her eyes. It was then he remembered that her link to the TARDIS translator matrix had been broken. The Doctor covered his mouth and turned his back. "She can't understand me," he told Martha, voice shaking. "Tell her...tell her I'll help her sleep. I'll put something pleasant in her dreams. I don't know what else to do."

Calm and steady as a rock, Martha relayed the message to Maggie. She was still staring at the Doctor, but tears filled her dull eyes. Taking it as his cue to do what he could, he stepped forward. One of the only words he recognized in Earth English fell from her lips.

"No."

He froze, arms half-outstretched. Swallowed and shook his head helplessly, and tried again.

"_No,_" Maggie repeated, cracked voice that much louder as fat shining tears streaked onto the floor beneath her. Her every breath was constricted by the pain of broken ribs, but as the Doctor readied himself and moved forward she still thrashed out and caught him across the face with one arm. He closed his hands over her temples, concentrating as best he could with her screaming in his ears as though she were being hideously tortured. "_NO! NO! STOP! STOP! NO!_" she wailed.

The Doctor shut his eyes and focused on Asgaard, on the turquoise sky, the shimmering clouds, the look of pure wonder and joy on Maggie's face as she beheld it for the first time, and the lance of joy it shot straight to his own hearts to see. It took only moments for her to go limp, either asleep or unconscious with the dream planted in her head.

Waiting until he turned away, Martha stripped the dirty cloth rom Maggie's body and used it to bind her ribs as best she could while the girl was unconscious. "Jack, can we use your coat?" she asked quietly.

Immediately Jack stripped his coat off and handed it over to Martha so she could cover Maggie. Then he turned to the Doctor, who had sunk against the opposite wall with one hand pressed against it like an anchor. Jack knelt beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"You, Rory, carry her _carefully_ - I could only do a basic check of her spine and neck," instructed Martha next, seeing how the Doctor and Jack were occupied. "Mickey, you and I will keep a cover. Jack, you just keep doing what you're doing, and let's get the hell out of here."

Everyone did as they were instructed. Rory's eyes were very red as he lifted Maggie as easily as a rag doll. She whimpered but did not wake.

Mickey took the lead back out of the house, weapon at the ready. He was followed by Rory and Maggie, who were followed by Jack - practically carrying the Doctor and scolding him for only taking painkillers and nothing to actually heal his injuries before lifting a heavy gun and getting himself hit in his fractured jaw. They were covered from the rear by Martha, who had a better ear and recognized when the authorities had arrived. Despite not wanting to jostle Maggie, they took off down the hill at a jog and nearly ran headfirst into the side of the invisible TARDIS. It took all the energy the Doctor had left to snap his fingers and open the doors.

Rory and Martha went to the med bay as soon as they got inside to tend to Maggie, but the Doctor made Jack and Mickey hang back and help him get the ship into the Vortex. He gripped the edge of the console with white knuckles and staggered to each control before finally conceding to instructing them how to do it. It was still easier with two novices and one half-conscious pseudo-professional than it would have been with just the Doctor. They didn't put in a destination, just got the TARDIS out and free-flying in the Vortex, then took the Doctor to the medical bay to get patched up.

"I just need to sit down and I'll be fine," the Time Lord insisted, planting himself in a chair by Maggie's head and daring them all with his eyes to just _try_ moving him. When no attempt was made he raised a hand and stroked her hair with fierce concentration, being careful not to touch the irritated, bloodied spots on her scalp where hair had been ripped out. Her eyes twitched behind their lids, but she otherwise didn't stir.

Every few moments he would murmur an instruction for Martha and Rory, who were trying to puzzle out how to use his equipment. Soon many of Maggie's injuries had been mended or at least disinfected and covered up, save a stubborn blackened eye and her broken ribs. "Rory, hand me that," he said softly after a while, pointing to a wide white bandage-looking device with one side glowing blue. The befuddled nurse handed it over, and after a moment's fumbling the Doctor wrapped it around his torso and sighed with relief. "Virtually painless, but it only works when you're conscious; heals broken ribs in half an hour," he explained. "Have to make sure it still works before using it on Maggie - haven't needed it in decades." There was an audible sound of bones re-setting and he grunted breathlessly, but that seemed to be the only exception to 'virtually painless.'

Finally, after what felt like hours and nearly endless conference between Martha and Rory, they had Maggie as best patched-up as could be done, and it was time for the Doctor to wake her so they could assess any further damage. He stood easily - healed ribs and internal bleeding leaving his bruised jaw as his only remaining injury - but hovered over his companion, hands hesitating inches from her temples.

"She needs to wake up sometime, Doctor," Martha reminded him gently. "I know it's easier to let her have her dreams, but you can't protect her forever."

He nodded to himself, bracing, and closed his eyes before making contact with Maggie's mind. It was more difficult to get into a sleeping mind than a waking one, especially one so damaged by trauma and fear because it was protecting itself from more pain, and he had to pick quite a few locks before she finally, reluctantly, let him in.

The Doctor found himself not in Asgaard, but Darillium. Night had fallen, the towers were singing out their light, and Maggie was standing on the grassy slope facing them. Not altogether steady, she swayed in time to the haunting music with arms wrapped around herself to fend off the cold. He walked carefully to her side, not wanting to turn the dream to a nightmare by startling her. "Maggie, I'm sorry, but you have to wake up now," he told her, feeling the regret weighing his voice down. "You're safe. You're on the TARDIS with me and my friends. They're here to help you."

Never once tearing her eyes away from the towers, Maggie replied, "I don't want to be helped." Upon closer inspection, the Doctor saw that her fingernails were digging into he soft flesh of her upper arms, drawing blood in great red beads. "I don't want to wake up. I don't want to be alive." She gave a mirthless laugh, tears sparkling in her eyes. "Did you know, I only thought he was going to kill me? It never even occurred that there was a fate worse than death."

He swallowed thickly, feeling bile rise in his throat even when it wasn't a real substantial one. "Maggie, I'm so sorry. I tried to come back sooner, but something went wrong on the TARDIS, it was only meant to be a few minutes. But you're safe now, you're with me, and -"

"Did being with you keep me safe before?" she snapped. "I told them I was your companion, hoping to make them recognize your authority and release me, and they laughed in my face. They said it made my captivity all the better." She shook her head, loose hair falling darkly about her face. "You're nothing extraordinary, are you, Doctor? You're not someone of power, or of prominence. You're just a man who gets into scraps across the universe and lets his friends take the punishments for him."

"No!" gasped the Doctor, feeling the control slipping further out of his grasp. If he didn't wake her soon, they would both be lost to the protected sleep he'd put her under, unable to be woken up by any other than another telepath. "No, I don't...Maggie, you've seen what I do! I never wanted you to be hurt; I tried to help you!"

"_And you failed, Doctor!_" Maggie screamed in return, her black hair turning to flame and rising nightmarishly up above her head. "_Don't you see? It doesn't matter that you tried, because you failed me! And now I will burn! I will burn and grow weak and die among the ashes, and you are to blame!_" She ripped her hands away from where they'd sunk inches into her arms, sending fiery drops of blood flying through the air, before digging her claw-like hands into her very bosom and ripping open her chest. Birds of live embers flew from the gaping cavity, clawing at the Doctor's hair and face.

Taking the only action he could think of, the Doctor stepped forward, toward the imagined danger, and wrapped his arms around Maggie. He clenched his eyes shut against the dream-pain and held her tight. "Then I'll burn with you," he vowed. "I will, Maggie. If I can't save you, I'll burn with you."

The girl gasped, breathless with shock at his sacrifice, and all at once the fire simmered out and vanished. Black tendrils of hair fell loosely over them. She did not return his embrace, but neither did she continue to fight.

"Wake up, Maggie," he begged her. "Wake up, and we'll sort this out."

Maggie opened her eyes, and they were back in the med bay. It had only been seconds for those watching even though the Doctor and Maggie had been on the hill for at least ten minutes, if not longer. She stared up at the Doctor with the highest mistrust; he took his hands from her temples and tried to smile reassuringly. It came out as more of an apologetic grimace.

"What do I do?" she whispered, seeming for all the world helpless even though the Doctor could see even then the faintest glimmer of something in her eyes. Something _brave_.

He closed his hand around hers; she flinched slightly at the unwarranted contact. "I don't know," he admitted, "but we'll sort it out together."

He received no reply, but didn't particularly need one in that case. When Martha insisted on doing a further examination of Maggie's spine the men were kicked out. Rory put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder as they went off to make tea in the kitchen, hearing Martha speak soothingly to the younger girl.


	6. Chapter 6

"She's a very good doctor, isn't she?" murmured the Doctor, looking back over his shoulder one last time before the doors to the med bay swung shut. Rory nodded in agreement but otherwise made no effort to speak, obviously lost in thought.

They found Jack and Mickey in the kitchen already in the process of making tea, sitting in somber companionship among the detritus of old familiar territory. "Kitchen looks the same, even if you don't," Mickey observed, staring down at his empty mug.

The Doctor smiled haltingly and, on an old impulse, patted the top of Mickey's head in an imitation of ruffling hair that was too short to do more than prickle. The younger man shoved his hand away, but there was a hint of a reminiscent smile there. "Remember Madame DePompadour?" he asked then, eyes alight with old memories. The Doctor laughed, embarrassed. "I thought Rose was gonna rip your head off."

"I'm surprised _you_ didn't after what I said about you and the horse," added the Doctor. Mickey chuckled at the table, thumb digging absently in a crack in the wood. There was a hint of his own shame there, and the Doctor felt the need to make amends. "Thank you, Mickey. Not just for today, but for everything. You were always more than a tin dog to me, surely you know that; I just had to make you see it for yourself."

A smile threatened to break through on Mickey's face, but he rolled his eyes. "Couldn't have just gotten a mirror or something?" he muttered, and before he could protest the Doctor had pulled him up into a crushing hug. "Alright, alright, pull it together, I'm a married man..." Even as he protested he was wrapping his arms around the Time Lord's shoulders, bracingly patting his back. The Doctor clung to him for another moment before letting go with a sad grin.

The kettle started to whistle, and Rory jumped up immediately to tend to it. "So...we got the call, Doctor," he said in a forcedly-conversational tone. "From the people at The Library." Even as he poured hot water into the teapot he remained perfectly calm. His hand didn't even shake. "They sent us her diary. I...my god, she loved you."

Ignoring Jack and Mickey's inquiring glances, the Doctor smiled shakily. "How's Amy?"

Rory shrugged. "Coping. You know. Before any of us really knew her - River - you told Amy that you knew how she died. So...it was almost a mercy to her. I think she's been preparing herself for it for a while." He swallowed and brought the teapot to the table, sitting down and clasping his hands together. "Did she...I mean, how did it...?" he trailed off, looking away.

"Saving me," the Doctor answered. "Saving thousands of people. Well, sort of. Really, she saved herself." He reached across the table and closed his hand around Rory's wrist. "I promise you, I'll come and explain it all someday. I will. But right now I need to stay here with Maggie, and give her what she needs or find someone else who can." Rory nodded and closed his free hand over the Doctor's for a moment before pushing away from the table.

"Biscuits, anyone?" he asked in a strained voice, walking very quickly to the back of the kitchen.

There was a murmur of assent among everyone at the table; moments later Martha came in, looking tired and sad but otherwise hopeful. "It took a bit of a search, but I found something to help her sleep," she told the Doctor. "I only gave her a light dose. Seems the TARDIS hasn't forgotten me after all; I just touched the bottle and she hummed in my head." She was beaming as she explained it, rather like a student returning from school and realizing the family dog still remembered her.

"She was always fond of you," the Doctor replied indulgently before smiling up at her. "Thank you so much for everything, Martha. I'll get you all home soon."

Jack put a hand at the base of his neck, brushing his thumb in the short hairs there. "Do you want me to stay a while?" he asked. "Now that Torchwood's over with, I don't have much to occupy my time."

Fighting the odd urge to lean into the contact - he'd gotten too used to casual touches in his time with River - he shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what she might be more sensitive to, now." Nodding understandingly, Jack stepped away and took up a cup of tea, grimacing at its weakness compared to his love of coffee.

They finished their tea in silence, Rory bringing back the biscuits after a good ten minutes alone at the other end of the kitchen. He looked completely composed; the Doctor hugged him anyway. Hugged all of them, in fact, just because they were all here and alive and relatively undamaged. It was easy to recognize the ones he would have called along with them and couldn't, the ones who had been torn away beyond repair, the holes in his world that would never be patched over no matter how many more came and went. Each of them desperately hoped somewhere deep and private in themselves that Maggie would be on their side someday, and not one of the holes.

He took them home with little fuss, opting not to get out at Martha and Mickey's to avoid an almost-inevitable slap from Mrs. Jones, who had apparently been in the sitting room when they flew in to pick the couple up. However he shuffled timidly out at Rory's insistence when they arrived in Upper Leadworth, leaving Jack to hold the fort for a few minutes. "You swear she's not going to hit me?" he asked Rory, who smirked.

"Doctor. It's _Amy_. No one could promise that."

They grinned uncomfortably at one another as the door swung open and the woman herself walked out, tailed by two children: a sandy-haired girl of eight and a ginger boy of five. She didn't leap upon the Doctor's embrace as she had weeks ago before River's departure, but instead smiled sadly while the kids attacked their father. He stepped nearer and quirked a brow at his friend. "Permission to hug?" he asked, feeling as though one of his hearts was lodged in his throat.

Amy chuckled weakly and nodded. "Granted." She clung to him for several long moments, fingernails scratching his jacket in an attempt to hold him even closer, before letting go with wet eyes. "I know it's not your fault. I know because I know you, and I know my daughter. _Knew_ my daughter? There's no chance she's going to, you know, pop in when I'm, I'm dunno, really properly ancient and scare me right out of my skin, is there?" she asked, skeptical.

Unable to resist, recalling a long-ago perfect afternoon in Leadworth with an impossibly old white-haired couple, the Doctor smiled and winked. "Spoilers."

That did get him hit, but only lightly and on the arm before Amy hugged him again. "You'd better go before another of my kids falls in love with you." She pulled a face. "I can't even tell if that would be weird or not anymore."

The Doctor laughed. He gave Rory one last hug, patted Jemma and Mick on the heads, and walked back to the TARDIS.

"What happened?" he heard Amy ask over his shoulder.

Rory sighed heavily. "I'll tell you after the little Scots are in bed."

Back in the console room, he stripped down to his shirtsleeves and ran a hand through his hair before facing the ex-Time Agent in the jumpseat. "Where can I take you, Jack?" he asked, all business.

The younger - older? How old was Jack now, anyway? - man shrugged. "Oh, I dunno, just drop me on some asteroid somewhere and I'll be satisfied." Then he grinned wolfishly. "Unless you wanna have a try in that new body of yours before I go?"

"And _that_ is why you're not staying," the Doctor rolled his eyes fondly, punching in coordinates. "I'll leave you on - oh, _this_ is a good one - Rodom Biculia. Lovely place, clothes are forbidden, you'll have the time of your life..."

Once again, the TARDIS was empty with minimal fanfare. The Doctor didn't know if he was relieved or deeply saddened by how seamlessly his friends, enemies, companions, seemed to come and go. For a while he sat in the jumpseat, feet up on the console in the way his old regeneration had been so fond of and pondered the mysteries of the universe. It took almost fifty years of practice to get his damned equilibrium sorted. Thinking was very dull sometimes.

"Things are going to be alright, aren't they?" he asked aloud, feeling more like a child speaking to an imaginary friend than a Time Lord to his sentient ship. "Maggie and I, we'll sort this out. It'll be fine."

He paused with concentration as the TARDIS's vacant hum spiked to a peak in his mind, pointing him toward the med-bay where Maggie was meant to be sleeping. The word _trouble_ bloomed to the surface of his consciousness, and he quickly made his way there. "Maggie, everything alright?" he called, giving fair warning before appearing so as not to startle her.

The girl was sitting up, sheets wrapped around her like a cocoon as she stared owlishly at him. She was pale, very pale, to the point of almost blending in with the white blankets. "I..." she stammered aimlessly, looking uncertain of what had frightened her. Martha had apparently found some pajamas in the closet for her to wear, good.

Cautiously, the Doctor sat himself on the edge of the bed and unwound one of Maggie's hands from where it had clenched in the sheets. "They're all gone now," he told her. "Just you and me. Is that alright?" Once her hand was untangled he put it down, giving it a little pat.

"What do I do?" she repeated the same question she'd asked after waking. "I don't know what to do."

It seemed she wouldn't stop asking until the Doctor gave her a certain answer, and so he told her the first thing that he could cook up. "You _survive._"

Of course it wouldn't be enough, not by a long shot, but it seemed enough to satisfy Maggie for the time being. She nodded. "Do you want to go to your own room?" he asked, quietly clapping his hands together for lack of anything better to do with them.

There was a short pause in which Maggie looked from the med-bay, at its organic coldness and smooth angles, to him. When she spoke it was barely more than a whisper, as though uncertain as to whether or not the language translator really was up and running again. "Do you remember the day you were singed by the Dalek?" she asked softly. The Doctor nodded. "When we came back here and you made me listen to your heart - hearts - for irregularities?" Another nod; Maggie bit her lip. "Could I...that sound was most consistent and - comfortingly rhythmic. If it's not too forward...could I listen again?"

Her eyes darted back down to look at her knobby knees, and the Doctor smiled, pulling an Earth stethoscope from where Martha had left it on the edge of the bed. He offered his hand - relieved beyond words when Maggie took it - and they went not to Maggie's room but to the sitting room. Many afternoons they had spent in that room stocked with books from the library, snacks from the kitchen, and sometimes films from Earth and other planets that had an entertainment industry. They'd laughed themselves silly over Monty Python, and when they watched _The Graduate_ they both cried. Rainy days had never been better; Sarah Jane spent many of her free hours writing notes on their adventures, Romana I spent her time studying, and Donna had only ever wanted to go to spas.

Stretching himself out on the enormous leather sofa (not Earth leather, mind, but the closest one could get three dimensions away from a cow), he handed the device over and, with a very gentle tug, pulled Maggie down to curl against him.

Maggie, feeling uncomfortable and warm against the Doctor's side, tentatively unfastened one button on his shirt and slipped the chestpiece inside. Though it was cold to the touch the Time Lord didn't flinch - his body temperature was cooler than hers, she recalled with soft clarity. She placed it in the center of his chest, adjusted the earpieces, and sighed at the steady rhythm. _Bum-bum-bum-bum. Bum-bum-bum-bum. Bum-bum-bum-bum._ It really was such a comforting sound.

An unbidden memory flashed before her eyes and she closed them tightly, shivering. She focused with more concentration on the sound of the Doctor's heart. _Bum-bum-bum-bum. Bum-bum-bum-bum. Bum-bum-bum-bum. Bum-bum-bum-bum. Bum-bum-bum-bum..._

"Did you know," began the Doctor conversationally, "that on my home planet there was this thing called...Maggie?"

For the third time she had gone slack with sleep, but this time there were no dreams to disturb her. The Doctor wrapped an arm around to rest a hand on her temple, and made certain of it.


End file.
